The components of airplanes, for example the wings and fuselage, are presently manufactured on very large tooling machines. These machines are extremely heavy and are housed in very large buildings. In addition, a plurality of machines are required in order to manufacture a single component of the airplane, because most of the machine tools are dedicated to a specific component.
FIG. 1 is a perspective view of a prior art machine tool 8. There are facing pedestals 10 that are fixed to the shop floor 100. Each of the pedestals 10 supports an end of a very large and heavy work frame 11. The work frame 11 may weigh tens of thousands of pounds. There is a fixture 12 attached to the work frame 11, and a workpiece 14 is attached to the fixture 12. A C-frame 15 is provided for performing machining operations on the workpiece 14. For example the C-frame 15 may be used for installing and upsetting fasteners in the workpiece 14. The C-frame 15 is supported on heavy C-frame platforms 17 and X-axis carriage 16 which allows for movement of the C-frame 15 in the Y-axis direction. However, the machine tool 8 has limitations. The pedestals 10 must be enormous in weight and height, as measured from the floor 100, in order to support the massive work frame 11. Indeed, internal to the pedestals 10 are enormous counterweights for offsetting the great weight of the work frame 11. In addition, the shop floor 100 must be made with extremely thick foundations, for example, six or more feet thick, in order to support the massive pedestals 10 and work frame 11 and C-frame 15 with platforms 17 and X-axis carriage 16. All of this adds to the costs associated with using the tall heavy pedestals 10, massive work frame 11, C-frame 15 with platforms 17 and X-axis carriage 16. In addition, the machine tool 8 is limited to the extent that it may only accommodate a dedicated work frame 11 having a fixed length. The workframe was previously sized for the largest workpiece 14 to be produced on the machine. The workpieces 14 may be in various shapes and sizes, from flat (requiring very little A and B axis rotation or angle) to single curve partial cylindrical (requiring only A angle rotation) to double curved (requiring A and B angle rotation as shown in FIG. 2). If a machine is designed with a long work frame 11 (based on the longest workpiece 14) and is used to produce a shorter double curved workpiece 14 with a large B angle requirement (the B angle is the tilting angle made by the work frame 11 relative to horizontal) the pedestals 10 and C-frame 15 must be significantly taller to accommodate the long work frame 11 when a large B angle is required, thereby resulting in an increase in both the height and weight of the machine tool 8. That is, the work frame 11 is of constant size, which means that for different sized and shaped workpieces 14 additional machine tools 8 must be used. As a result, three (3) or more machine tools 8 may be required during the fabrication of a single group of workpieces. This duplication of differently sized machine tools 8 undesirably adds to costs, increases the possibility of down time, increases maintenance costs, and may result in production inefficiencies.
Thus, what is needed is a better way to assembly the components of a workpiece, for example aircraft wing, that eliminates the need for multiple machine tools, deceases costs, and provides for a lighter weight apparatus having greater flexibility.